


History Repeats

by usedusernames



Category: Back to the Future (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, First Time, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 15:36:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/967652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usedusernames/pseuds/usedusernames
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On November 16, 1955, Marty McFly had two things: a broken time machine and fake cowboy pants that rode up in a most uncomfortable way. Marty/Doc in which Marty gets trapped in 1955 following the second movie.  Old fic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	History Repeats

On November 16, 1955, Marty McFly had two things: a broken time machine and fake cowboy pants that rode up in a most uncomfortable way.

:-:-:

The change, he'd known, would happen suddenly. It would go from dust to, well, dust and possibly a tumbleweed, but hopefully it would happen before he ran into the Indian mural. He thought as fourth-dimensionally as he could. The car shook, rattled, rocked beneath him familiarly. He pressed his foot down harder. The gas pedal, already floored, didn't move, but somewhere gears ground in what Marty would like to think was a response. The number climbed. 85, 86, 87, Jesus Christ he hoped Doc was right. Those Indians were close enough to see the whites of his eyes—fortunately they hadn't worked under William Prescott. 88, 89 miles per hour. 90 miles per hour. Marty, with the skill and grace of a teenage driver, avoided driving into the Indians by yanking the steering wheel hard to the right, dust billowing above, around, and below the DeLorean as he went. At 91 miles per hour, he skidded to an undignified stop some feet from The Doc.

"Doc," he called, stumbling weak-kneed out of the car, "I think we got a problem." When he regathered his wits enough to be upset, Marty turned to frown at the DeLorean. "I don't get it, Doc. It went up to 88. What's the matter with it?"

"Marty, the time machine was left unattended for seventy years, never mind the damage obtained during the storm; the number of variables are indefinite."

"But, Doc, we fixed it," Marty insisted. "You told us how to fix it! I think you know how the DeLorean works." He took the letter from his pocket and waved it in Doc's face as evidence. Settling down, he refolded the letter. "Christ, Doc, this is getting confusing."

Doc began writing on a crumpled piece of paper. "Don't worry about any of that now."

"Then when the hell can I worry about it?" Doc, for what it was worth, didn't give him the look his parents or Jennifer would have. Since it was the look that-- while a well-crafted form of disapproval-- tended to fuel the fire, Marty was left with nothing to go on. He tugged on the thighs of his pants, but they remained tight and ill-fitting. Finally, he restarted, "Look, Doc. I dunno what's going on, but we can't just stand out here with a time machine all day... even if it doesn't work."

"You're absolutely right," Doc agreed, putting away the paper with obvious reluctance.

:-:-:

"Wednesday, November 16, 1955," Doc said into his tape recorder, "Time is 3:05 P.M. Have just arrived home. Attempt to send the other Marty to 1885 to rescue the other me has ended in failure! A secondary attempt will begin--!"

"Doc, c'mon, both our futures are at stake here."

"momentarily." Doc concluded. He snapped his thumb off the button. "Marty, please. Records, both visual and audio, are of extreme scientific importance."

"I know, Doc. I know."

Doc pressed the button down again and continued talking, "Prior corrections made to the DeLorean, as per my written instructions, have proven meaningless. Attempts from here on out shall be done without influence from past—or future—" he said, with a nod to Marty, "events."

:-:-:

"Wednesday, November 16, 1955, 7:08 P.M. Damage has been inflicted upon both the time vehicle and the screen of cinematic viewing—"

"Drive-in," Marty supplied helpfully.

Doc, with a pointed look, continued. "The damage to the time vehicle is superficial, however, the—"

Doc was about to detail just what happened to the drive-in Marty took the tape recorder from him. "I stopped the 9:00 viewing and nearly took out some Indians," he said into it. He passed it back over.

"In spite of attempts made by my assistant to the contrary, the space-time continuum appears to be intact."

:-:-:

In 1976, Marty and his father, the father who cowered down to Biff, would watch the only movie that they saw alone together while never seeing at all. It was midnight, past midnight, actually, and everyone except his father was asleep when he sneaked into the living room. He'd stopped when he saw his dad, hesitated, unsure whether or not to go back to bed. In the glow of the television, George's face looked paler, the shadows under his eyes darker, the lines starting to form at his mouth sharper. His glasses flashed white as he turned to look at Marty. "Son."

"I was just gonna get a glass of water," Marty excused himself. But his dad patted a sofa cushion invitingly-- Marty drew himself back again. Grudgingly he moved to the couch and sat down beside his father.

George crossed his legs and flung his arm over the back of the sofa. In 1955, Marty remembered that in 1972 all he could do was wonder how his dad managed to make a casual movement seem so awkward; George's high-water pants rose up another half an inch that way, his mouth was half-open so he could breathe, and his glasses had started a slow descent down the bridge of his nose. What a loser he'd thought.

The late-late-late movie came on then. Logan's Run. Most of the movie consisted of his dad talking science fiction over it, explaining things whether they were relevant or not. Halfway into the movie, Marty scooted to the other end of the couch. George, having gotten into a rather involved discussion that was mostly to himself but inexplicably required someone to listen, stalled. "I'm sorry," he said quietly.

"Dad, I didn't mean, I wasn't--!" He was indignant; he hadn't wanted the conversation, but George withdrawing it so abruptly seemed unnaturally rude. George drew away some more, flinching at the sound of his son's voice, melting into his corner of the couch. At nine, nearly ten, Marty was too old to want his father and old enough not to want to hurt his father. "I was stretching."

George accepted the excuse smiling, even if he didn't believe it, and carried on, this time in a more enjoyable manner, hands flying about busily in invisible demonstration. Marty, only partially playing up his lie, moved back against his dad. They'd both wake up on the couch in the morning, and his father would go to work in the same clothes.

He loved his father all the time, purely by default. But that time, not-watching the only movie they ever saw together, was the only time Marty could say he liked George McFly.

This is what he thought of as the DeLorean wound down from 90 miles an hour for the third time.

:-:-:-:-:

"Friday, November 18, 1955. Continued lack of success regarding the matter of returning Marty to his own time is affecting our morale. No solution to the malfunction of the time vehicle is in sight. Time is 10:35 P.M.."

"Doc." Marty said, "I'm going nuts here."

"I know, Marty. But I think you're aware that under the circumstance there's little I can do."

"We gotta do something!"

"What do you suggest?"

"I don't know. Maybe, maybe all it needs is some plutonium. Maybe a little lightning. Maybe there's something wrong with Mr. Fusion. Maybe--"

Doc smiled in that way. The way he never had in this week in 1955 and always did in 1985. ("What?" Marty asked with a laugh). The '55 Doc, however, responded differently than the '85 Doc would have: "Marty, the statistical probability of being struck by lightning is a thousand to one! You had your chance and you missed it, kid! If there's a problem with the nuclear fusion reactor, we'll have to find alternate means of generating the energy to power the flux capacitor: lightning is out of the question. Plutonium is out of the question! Marty--"

"Don't tell me, I'm stuck here. Well, that's just great, Doc."

:-:-:

Falling asleep on someone's couch was a strange occurrence for Marty. Not crashing at someone's house, not even crashing at The Doc's house. But he, in general, got a bed out of the deal. "Good thing you got thirty years to learn about hospitality," Marty said. He was laying down, his legs swung over the arm of the sofa, watching The Doc move around the room. By the time Doc stopped, the only way Marty could see him without moving was upside down.

"What?"

"Nothing."

The Doc hummed absentmindedly in response. He resumed his pacing. Sitting suddenly, Marty resumed watching him right side up.

"Hey, Doc?"

"Yes?"

"I've been thinking, and...What if you don't invent the time machine? Now, hear me out: in your letter you said wanted to destroy it anyway, right? So how 'bout we just, we just sit here and wait until everything goes back to normal?" This speech apparently required gesticulation; Marty's hands moved wildly until, in a self-conscious gesture, he folded his arms in front of himself, hands pinned beneath his armpits.

"Thirty years is a rather long time to 'sit around'."

"...We could play cards." He received a look he hadn't seen from The Doc in the twelve years they'd known each other. He kept forgetting they had a different relationship here; it would take almost the entire twelve years for Doc to catch up. "Look, Doc, I know. But if you never invent the time machine, I can never travel through time, which means I can't wind up here, you'll never get shot in the back, and none of this shit will ever happen. C'mon, Doc, what do you say?"

The Doc had quite a bit to say on this subject, most of it adamantly against the idea, involving possible paradoxes and imploding or exploding worlds, and most of it passing Marty by amidst his rambling. But between the hopeful look Marty was giving him and being able to spend almost another full lifetime before it would be revealed as lie or truth, Doc nodded once, curtly, instead.

:-:-:

Doc had insisted the first day Marty arrived that he would not allow Marty to disrupt his personal life; it was in this vein Doc sat down and began to read 'Around the World in 80 Days' somewhere in the middle of the book. He must have gotten through about a chapter when he at once turned to the beginning to start over. He hopped around the book, taking it all in excitedly, apparently too full of anticipation to take it in chronologically. Marty sat just as calmly on the couch, but his pastime was noticeably louder as Van Halen blared into his ears. When Doc had put the book aside and nearly fallen asleep on the chair, Marty turned his Walkman off and said without looking at The Doc, "How come I keep thinking about my dad?"

"Homesickness isn't an unusual affliction."

Doc's eyes remained mostly-closed, but he was aware of the shift in the air. He moved his hand for Marty to sit on the arm of the chair.

"No. I mean, you know my old man. He was a complete loser, but he wasn't anything like that when I got back the first time. How come I don't miss him? The second him."

"The metaphysical manifestation of your father may have been influenced by the space-time continuum repairing itself." He watched Marty severely for a moment. "It does seem to have been able to avoid paradox thus far... Much more versatile than I ever thought possible!" Doc, used to being solitary, and unused to being a capable inventor, became wrapped up in the possibility of his time machine once again in spite of the damage it had caused being all around him. He reflected on this with hope and admiration of the future until Marty said, "...Doc?"

"Oh, yes," Doc shook himself out of his reverie. He placed a hand on his head. "You were never part of the timeline in which your father had not decked Biff. As such, when you returned replacing the you of that 1985, the changes around you seemed instantaneous!"

"It's been a long time since I hung out with my folks," Marty mused, taking his own turn at daydreaming. He moved back to the couch and laid down. "You think I—I mean, the other me-- did that a lot?" Doc moved towards him. He took a blanket, strewn across the back of the couch, and spread it over Marty. It wasn't quite enough like being tucked in just as his mother was finishing up 'Happily ever after', for Marty to take offense at. As Doc continued on, walking to the door, Marty managed to ask, "What're you doin', Doc? I'll come with you."

"No, thank you, Marty. I just want a little fresh air."

Marty, too tired to push it, closed his eyes.

Doc went outside to work on the DeLorean alone.

:-:-:-:-:

On November 20, 1955, at 7:23 A.M. Marty directly disobeyed Doc's explicit instructions and re-explored the town, which he figured he'd get bawled out for upon getting home.

It should have been astoundingly difficult with Doc being omnipresent , but at the time of Marty's escape, Doc had holed himself away in his library, going over all the great scientists had ever known about energy. Marty, readily proclaiming that he knew 'shit about energy', was a little more intrusive, if not all-out destructive, to this studying process than Doc freely admitted. Marty had shrugged. "I'll get outta your hair," he said. He'd tried the door a few minutes later to find it locked. Whether this was intentional or habitual Marty didn't know, but either way he could take a hint. So he strolled off to Lou's diner, which was only slightly inconvenient.

"...Thanks," Marty said as Lou slid him a glass of milk. He chugged it, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand when he was through; had he been thinking of it, even this would have reminded him of a young George McFly. He leaned across the counter, then straightened. "Say, you ever think of opening up, I don't know, an aerobics center?" He put his money on the counter, standing up.

"Aerobics?"

Marty grinned as he backed out the door. "I think it'd be a big hit."

:-:-:-:-:

November 21, 1955, 11:47 P.M. left Doc the one sleeping on the couch, a book spread open on his chest. Doc considered his plight the utmost importance, but that left any discussion outside of time travel a bit of a hassle. Therefore Marty, having only really talked to Lou for all of five minutes after he'd managed to keep his mom and dad together,(and Lou wasn't much of a conversationalist), felt ready to burst.. Marty, feeling more than a little foolish, took his opportunity.

"You know, Doc, I can't tell any of the guys this, even if I were in 1985. But me and Jennifer-" he stilled as Doc twitched. "were going to...park." he lifted his eyebrows at the word. All the words he had for it and he chose the one a little too closely associated with his mother. He coughed into his hand. Rubbed his hair bashfully. "This weekend. Well," he didn't amend his timeline. "Anyway, the guys woulda ragged on me, and my folks and Jennifer would've killed me if I said anything. But I had to tell somebody. So."

He got up, turned on the television, and sat at the end of the couch, the toe of The Doc's left shoe rubbing against his back.

:-:-:-:-:

On the final day of November, a funny thing happened. Funny in that Marty didn't care about it until it was over. At precisely 8:15 and 13 seconds, A.M., Doc timed it, Marty wrecked the DeLorean. They'd gotten some sort of current connected to the flux capacitor that Marty couldn't have explained if asked. He was willing to drive it on the condition it wouldn't catch on fire. Doc had given no guarantees, but Marty decided the hell with it and drove it nonetheless.

He must have started too close to the wall, or accelerated too slowly, because he had to turn before he got up to eighty-eight. The tires lifted, the car flipped, bump, bump, bump, sli-iide, the roof screeching as a rock scraped against it, rolled upright, bounce, bounce, and flipped again. Marty's head hit the steering wheel once but remarkably came up short the other three times it flew forward. As the car came to a dragging halt, his seatbelt pressed against his ribcage.

He turned his head slowly, watching as the lights in the destination keypad and the flux capacitor flickered and died in alarming unison.

:-:-:

"I'm sorry, Doc." Marty said. He skin seemed drawn too tight along his muscles, making every tick of a bicep seem to radiate along his body. He wasn't distressed, not really, the accident had been too immediate for this reaction to come at once, but hugged himself securely as he stood beside The Doc. "Christ, I wrecked it. I shouldn't have turned so fast. I mean, if I'd just slowed down this never woulda happened. I'm sorry." He repeated once more, unnecessarily, a little more bothered than he'd realized, "I'm sorry."

The Doc grabbed him by the shoulders. Pulled him into a hug that was unusually fluid for Doc. "Your safety is more important to me than this damn machine." The length of the embrace would have been awkward, if they hadn't both been lingering.

Marty looked at Doc, then past him. "Well, we'd better head home. Should we call a tow truck or something?"

:-:-:

The thought of losing someone, either to death or to time, was unnerving. The tangled car was unnerving. The thin line of dried blood from the cut on Marty's forehead which Doc checked twice even after he declared it nothing, having 'barely broken the epidermis', was unnerving. By the time they had gotten home, Doc was unnerved.

Marty, in an invulnerability that accompanied his youth, shook it off after some vivid thoughts in which he was left mangled in a futuristic car. That was too unreal to frighten him, having never happened, leaving him wondering how the hell Doc would explain it if it ever did. That image was a little too amusing for Doc to appreciate in his current state.

It was with Doc's hands on his head, Doc's palm covering his cheek and Doc's fingers on his hairline, finger touching the scratch on his head for the final time, that Marty did what he did.

Which was another funny thing that happened , because he'd never considered doing it at all before that moment.

:-:-:

He kissed The Doc for the first time that day. Had sex with The Doc for the first time. Had sex, period, for the first time. It wasn't as incredible as the guys said it was, fuh-cking a-mazing, but maybe the guys were full of shit. He could feel his sweat at the base of his skull, beneath Doc's fingers. Could feel the blood rush up and away from his toes, leaving them cold when they pressed tight against Doc's loose-muscled calves. Feel Doc's skin yield under his fingertips, his fingernails, leaving imprints that faded in seconds. Already hard, he came almost as soon as Doc touched him. His chest quivered with a shaky inhale, his damp head landed heavily against the bed, Doc's index finger trapped beneath. He spasm-clenched against The Doc's cock still hard inside him. Jerked reflexively, ultra-sensitive, sensitive enough that it just about hurt, with every in-push and pull-out even after he was spent.

It was good enough. Good enough to want to do it again.

He was young enough. Young enough that Doc, with bowed head, worked harder than ever on a project they'd given up the same day and would again give up the next week.

:-:-:-:-:

On June 20, 1956, Marty turned eighteen—two months after his father did. Except not really, Doc explained, given the days of the year from October to November that he had skipped; it would actually be about another week and a half before his birthday. "You're taking all the fun outta being an adult, Doc," Marty said, kissing his friend soundly on the mouth. In any event, he declared it counted, because when you subtract thirty years a week and a half means very little. It also had a strange gravity. Marty became aware in a way he hadn't been before that in another seven years his brother would be born, and five years after that he himself would be.

:-:-:-:-:

On August 1, 1962, from 3:25 to 6:01 P.M. he, The Doc, and half of Hill Valley stood watching the mansion burn to the ground. The firefighters came late, too late, and by the time they were there there was nothing to do but make sure it didn't spread. The air was hot, even from where they stood. The smoke and heat were entirely too comfortingly oppressive. Had Marty looked into the crowd, he would have seen his mother, heavily pregnant with her first child, lamenting the loss of 'Marty's uncle's house.' Maybe, she said to her husband standing beside her, she ought to stop by with a cake.

But Marty didn't see his mother.

"We coulda stopped it," he said, even though he hadn't been home.

The Doc said nothing.

"Was it an accident?"

"That's a ludicrous question, Marty."

"...You know, the guys always said you did it for the insurance money," Marty said, still looking into the fire. His fingers brushed against The Doc's. Doc looked at Marty, and it was then that Marty looked back. Neither said a word. Together they looked back to the flames.

They watched until the crowd had dissipated, the mansion left a smoldering, black, damp mess in front of them.

:-:-:-:-:

On June, 20, 1968, Marty McFly was born just as he turned thirty. Which was creepy as hell, he informed Doc over dinner. It was during that conversation they decided what to do about the future. And the past.

:-:-:-:-:

Sometime in February of '73, he and The Doc met himself. Marty, age five, sat, chattered quietly, and petted Newton. Newton was a pretty crappy name for a dog, and 35-year-old Marty couldn't much blame his 5-year-old counterpart for calling it 'Newt'. He didn't do much other than that. He didn't talk to The Doc or his older self, he just sat and talked in an unnecessarily secretive voice to that poorly-named dog.

The look of fondness Marty saw Doc bestow upon his young self--just as he was about to lean over and say 'Can you believe this? No wonder I hung out here.' only half-jokingly-- made Marty feel suddenly like his own father. Which, he couldn't help but think, was exactly the kind of thing he was trying to avoid that night in '55.

:-:-:-:-:

He watched himself grow up. After he turned six and thirty-six, Marty fell back in sync to the times the younger, meant-to-be-there self would swing by to see The Doc. Every time he said to himself, "Here, kid, want a soda?" he couldn't help but wonder if that moment would be the one to change the future. Which was only slightly paranoid.

He also wondered how the hell he could keep forgetting that he didn't drink anything with sugar in it.

:-:-:-:-:

Sometime after his younger self was seven-and-a-half, Marty made sure to make himself scarce, just in case. The only exception to this rule was when he was nine, nearing ten, and thirty-nine, nearing forty. He watched 'Logan's Run' late-late-late and asked himself about it the next day.

"It was all right," his younger self answered.

"Remember that night, kid. It's one of those things that are gonna stick with you for the rest of your life."

:-:-:-:-:

In 1982, he and Doc went out to buy a DeLorean. The DeLorean. "The stainless steel construction, if my calculations are correct, should make the flux dispersal--"

"I know, Doc," he answered with a smile, squeezing The Doc's arm before it occurred to him that Doc had been cut off in exactly the same place the first time around.

:-:-:-:-:

There are few memorable events. There are days of birth, there are days of death, both commemorated on a tombstone. Then there are days of special importance, the days you spend your whole life waiting for.

On October 26, 1:05 A.M., 1985, Marty McFly waited for himself with The Doc.

At 1:10 A.M. he couldn't put it off any longer—he was coming with the video camera soon--"So—ah. You have the bullet proof vest?"

"Of course."

Marty nodded. "I'll miss you." He kissed The Doc once, quickly, but it wasn't enough. He had only hugged Doc as soundly as he did then once before, thirty years before, on a stormy night, for exactly the same reason. Doc's hand tangled briefly in his hair.

By then he was getting to be an old man. Even the hike up the parking lot made his knees throb and breath grow shallow. But he climbed and stood where he knew he would interfere with neither of his former selves.

At 1:33, he would see himself come running up the hill to stop the murder of Doc Brown; he would see himself dive head-first into the DeLorean.

1:34, he would see himself, thirty years younger, run to The Doc just as he was going back to change history.

:-:-:

At 2:30 A.M. , the altered history would catch up with him. His younger self would be home and The Doc would have taken out the flux capacitor, reverting the DeLorean to its normal state. An ache would start as it had in 1955, first at his heart; the beating of it strained, as though it were held in a closed fist. The air, no longer belonging to him, would rip itself from lungs that were disappearing from his body. His fingers would flex, clench, flex, vanish.

On October 26, 1985, at 2:31 A.M., Marty McFly disappeared from existence just as his other self, warm in his bed, fell asleep.


End file.
